The 2022 Nate Belkin Award for Excellence in Marketing Reusable Textiles Award was presented to George Courey Inc. during ARTA’s Breakfast at Clean in Atlanta.

 George Courey Inc. (GCI) is a family-owned textile supplier to the healthcare, hospitality and fabric markets based in Montreal, Quebec. The company embodies ARTA’s spirit of “reusable first,” only offering reusable products and ensuring that its customers understand the trends in the textile markets and the value of reusables. During the pandemic GCI replaced 750,000 single-use products with reusables. GCI was called upon by the Canadian government to help with providing reusable surgical and isolation gowns, for both immediate needs and future-proofing. This is a great step for our industry since government buy-in is so important to ensure the displacement of single-use products. In addition, GCI has generously supported ARTA initiatives, participating in the life cycle assessment studies conducted by ARTA and through the service of its CEO Jeff Courey as Director on the ARTA Board for two terms. 

Selection Process – A nominating committee of two operators and two suppliers from the ARTA Board reviewed nominations and the Nate Belkin Committee made a recommendation on the finalists for the award.

About the Nate Belkin Award — Marketing reusable textiles in a disposable-centric society is challenging and it is ARTA’s mission to create greater awareness and appreciation for woven textiles. In 2017 it founded the Nate Belkin Award to honor the ARTA member and/or company that best exemplifies that mission. The Nate Belkin Award is presented biennially at the Clean Show.

Nate Belkin, PhD, founded ARTA in 1982 while working for Fashion Seal Healthcare. He passed in 2010. The Nate Belkin Award was founded in 2017. Past recipients include Lac-Mac Limited of London, Ontario, in 2017 and Greg Gurtler and Gurtler Industries in 2019.